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Came home to await delivery of the first batch of items from Taobao. Man, I must say I am truly satisfied with random checks of the items. The loot http:// In anticipation of questions via PM, I am writing this now: For those interested, please contact the following: Amcon Express 68441911 Ms May Ho The best way is to order directly from Taobao. But in order to order directly, you will need a Taobao account. To create a Taobao account, you will need the following: 1. China contact number 2. China contact person 3. China delivery address + "c/o <<YOUR NAME>>" The above will be provided by Amcon via email. They will also provide a worksheet for you to fill in your purchase details. Then pay with your local credit card to the sellers direct. Do note the prices stated on Taobao have not included their courier charges (if any) to the warehouse yet. Usually it's only a few / a few tens of Chinese Yuan. Alipay (the payment portal) will charge you a 3% processing fees. Then send your worksheet to Amcon via email. Do also let Amcon know the tracking number provided by the seller after they have couriered out the goods. Please note that Amcon will not inspect the items for you. For example,, if you order 5 items from the same seller in one single payment transaction, your goods will be packed in 1 carton if possible. This will be the unopened carton box that will be sent to your Singapore address. This carton will have a tracking number. This is the tracking number you have to provide to Amcon. You can request Amcon to ship to you your partial orders if you need them urgently, but if they do not add up to a cubic metre, you still have to pay the minimum charge of 1 cubic metre. Refer to my first picture above. Those 11 cartons only took up less than 85% of a cubic metre! Knowledge of the Chinese language is a pre-requisite to shop on Taobao. Tips: 1. Shop and compare prices. They should vary around 5 to 10% between sellers. If a deal looks too good to be true, it usually is. Give it a miss. 2. If you find any itmes you like, put them in the shopping cart first. Don't buy impulsely. 3. After I selected an item, I will enter the seller's shop to look at the rest of his goods. Sometimes you may find other useful related stuff here. And sometimes you may find the same things here that you have shortlisted at other sellers. Try to minimise the number of sellers. Save on courier charges. 4. I wait another 1 to 2 days to see if I need to order anymore items before I make payment. Pay for all the items within a 3-day period. This way, all your items will arrive at the warehouse at around the same time, plus/minus a few days. It makes consolidation easier for the warehouse. 5. Check the detail measurements of the items. 6. Sometimes it's worthwhile spending a bit more on quality items. For example, I only chose 304 stainless steel-made items for all my bathroom accessories and fittings. They cost 3 times more than the alloy ones, but I think they are still way cheaper if you get 304 ss bathroom items locally. 7. Shopping at Taobao can be addictive. Don't overindulge just because it is so so so cheap.. Happy shopping.

Today i manage to get in touch with the china supplier and spoke to them regarding the rainshower head set, they are nice and friendly very service oriented. I was surprise that they could actually give discount when i told them im getting 2 sets 12" head. The lady quoted me about SGD$290+ for 2 sets after discount which already includes delivery to your doorstep! Thks bro shor for the intro and link. Yeah!

Shiny flooring after polishing ~

Love the digi lock!

Thanks for answering the question. As kstoh mentioned, if you can live with just loose cables coming from the trunking, then just leave them as is. Else, you can get single, dual or even quad port faceplates with keystone jacks to tidy up the area. In my case, I am using a 8-port patch panel each for the study desk and TV console as there will be plenty of runs per location. For the Main Bedroom and Bedroom 1, I will only be using dual port faceplates as the runs will be 2 and 4 points respectively. On a sidenote, I have finally gotten a date for the HDB cement screeding on 8 April and since we still have a week before they start work, AL has arranged for the electrician to come in next week to run his electrical wiring as well as my network cables. Its time to finalise and draw my network plan for the electrician as reference even though I will be on site to explain in details what I have in mind.

At this point of time, I would really like to give credit to my ID, Mr. Foo from Custombox. Not only he accompany us to choose tiles, despite only for only 2 washrooms and kitchen. He was there when running electrical,helping to decide where are the points and switches. Also he was there to help deciding where to run the aircon trunking and also the plumbing. To me, these 3 are important phase in the reno It will define future functionality and also the current cost plus aesthetic matter. Some due to lack of planning, runs into extra cost of boxing up ugly trunking or changing of carpentry to accommodate the trunking. Much thought has to be given to electrical, mainly the 13A plus and the switches. Eg. many will have living/dining light switches at the house entrance and may forgetting a 2 way switch to off these light from the MBR end. Imagine the inconvenience of offing the light at the entrance and to walk to MBR in the dark.

Woohoo! Congrats!! Your house looks ok to me leh, your master room toilet exactly same as mine! Lol... Ya agree with Shor, slowly choose dont get pressured by them. You are the paymaster!

Buy the data socket with faceplate lor...cost less than $5.can buy double faceplate with 1 box to save space.Or better still go Sim Lim tower and buy the patch panel .

MBR (View from Entrance) MBR (View from MBR Bathroom) MBR Bathroom (View from Entrance)

Room 2 (View from Entrance) Utility Room - Extra Room from HDB upgrading (View from Entrance) Common Bathroom View 1 (View from Entrance) Common Bathroom View 2 (View from Entrance)

Kitchen (View from Entrance) Kitchen (View from Utility Room - Extra room from HDB upgrading )

I just end mine with loose cables. It is a bit messy. You can look at the pics. If you can accept that, then it is ok.

Living room (View from Kitchen) *Forgot to take picture from front door, do it tomorrow and put here. Storeroom (view from Entrance)

in that case, use a 4 port face plate

try a patch panel. you can get a 8 port patch panel if you don't have a lot of points. The pict below shows a 24-ports panel

Apparently she choose purple but it does not comes with the glittering stuff, thats why pink. Actually i see nothing wrong with pink or other bright colours, as long as you like it then go for it. Contractors say woodgrain, we both objected strongly , too dull for us. Ultimately its your home....

I didn't get the time to write about this earlier, but saw so many people getting stuff from Taobao in the blogs that I decided to buy some small stuff. I 'chicken', didn't dare to buy downlights, sink,etc that I see being purchased...I got all the taps/sink/lights locally instead. Always had the impression that sea shipping will take very long, like close to a month.....but ordering via Peeka it took just slightly more than 2 weeks to arrive. So now I've got even more stuff to move from parent's house to new house later. Stuff I bought : 蚕丝被 [quilt? comforter? I dunno the english name for this leh.] The blanket is made of silk strands and is supposed to be warm and good for aircon rooms, or so I was told. I dunno how to differentiate if it's real silk, but it looks great at the moment. There's a inner zipper holding the silk stuffings and another outer cover. The outer cover turned out to be more pink then I expected though. I thought it is a light pale pink...else might have considered the beige cover instead. This thing cannot be washed with water, can only sun it... so must protect it! edit : confirmed real silk based on the 'burn' test suggested by Ocean below. Cushions. Got 2 of these. These are nice too, covers are also quite sturdy material. Liking these as well. Laundry bag. Material feels sturdy, the inside has this waterproof looking layer. Happy with these too. Pardon, me big foot in the picture and I didn't realise.

I agree on what you said.... but I did mention, I did not buy it cheap either. Because the design a little unique. But disappointed lor. I bought a few items via Ali and it is definitely much more expensive than TB, but the quality is good. Especially the Rain shower & the LED faucet. Like a Crystal pendant hanging lamp, the crystal scratches during the shipment, the Seller sent the replacement 3 times until satisfied, now I have almost 100 crystal balls spare. Whoever need it I can spare you a few. Buying online is always a risk, just treat it as unlucky lor!

Hahaha, wise choice bro. Tiler also very happy.... These are the real items, I open up and pack into one box....

OpenNet called me this afternoon and I got a 11 March date! Nice, now my contractor can fix and paint after the works, and no need for touch up later.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! We're back from our overseas trip to celebrate the holidays with family and friends. Over the last two days, we had a couple of gatherings with groups of friends, so we transformed our study room to a cozy dining area, enough to comfortably sit 10. Here are some before and after pics of the makeover. [read more on our blog post here] Before: Our study on a typical day After: Our study converted into a cozy dining space

Hi Ivylee, By right, the difference in cost is due to the design factor from the ID. Usual pricing shld be like this: Full height feature wall ard $120pfr, Tv console ard $120pfr, Kitchen Cabinet ard $120pfr ( Your contractor price seems abit low...) Box up pricing ard $200 depending on dimensions, Casement Wardrobe ard $220pfr This price i got from my renovator. If you need i can intro. Oh ya, also needa take note of the material and mechanism they give like soft closing hinges etc... Hope this helps. cheers, mikey ( no need headache, reno is a journey to your dream home

Guys i got a good plumber to share , my office leaking problem and water tab was changed by them . Price also reasonable & free on site quoting too MR FOO hp : 96315352

Quite nice leh... and seem big too. how much you going to pay for this?